Taiwanese companies Himax Technologies and E Ink have joined forces to produce a low-power battery-operated device that detects shoppers and enables personalised marketing.

Himax is a fabless manufacturer of display drivers and other semiconductor products. E Ink is a pioneer in e-paper technology. They introduced the product at last week’s Touch Taiwan show.

It incorporates Himax’s WiseEye low-power AI sensing technology and E Ink’s Kaleido electronic paper display and electronic shelf label (ESL) technology.

WiseEye deploys context-aware AI in human presence and shopper insight detection while enhancing the battery life of an e-paper display and enabling real-time personalised marketing. Its AI sensing technology incorporates a proprietary low-power AI processor, always-on CMOS image sensor, and CNN-based AI algorithm, offering always-on sensing, on-device context-aware AI. It has been widely deployed in consumer electronics and AIoT applications.

WiseEye AI ensures the security of sensitive personal data by conducting AI inferences locally on the endpoint devices. This approach guarantees no raw images are transmitted outside the device. Instead, only AI-enabled personalised metadata are delivered in byte-level size to the store management system on the cloud. This reduces latency, lowers power consumption and offers users privacy protection for their information.

Amid the rising popularity of e-paper displays in the smart retail sector already known for energy efficiency, the integration of WiseEye smart camera devices into retail, using E Ink’s ecosystem in e-signage and ESL, could deliver benefits including gaining insights into customer behaviour, optimising inventory management and delivering personalised marketing messages.

By leveraging WiseEye’s AI, the deployment of battery-powered devices becomes feasible, facilitating easy installation throughout the store and enabling comprehensive data collection. The metadata collected by WiseEye AI, such as people count, location and dwell time, enhance the analysis of customer foot traffic patterns, popular shopper routes and demographic information.

For example, real-time promotions and discount information could be instantly displayed on e-paper devices, emphasising key content in areas where shoppers are congregating. Additionally, WiseEye can monitor shelf goods and warehouse inventory in real time, providing a mechanism for efficient inventory management.

Overall, WiseEye-enabled smart cameras can help retailers optimise operations and provide personalised experiences to their customers, driving business growth and profitability.

Leveraging Himax’s low-power AI for human presence detection, the e-paper display dynamically adjusts displayed content upon detecting shoppers approaching, thereby conserving power compared with conventional fixed-interval content changes.

For individual detection, the WiseEye-equipped in-store e-signage discerns a viewer’s individual characteristics, such as gender, expression, appearance and age, and displays an individual-correlated or personalised advertisement and recommendation of near-by merchandise along with relevant product details such as shelf location and manufacturer brands.

WiseEye achieves these AI advancements while consuming milliwatts of power. When combined with its power-saving feature, this results in a long battery life for smart e-signage systems.

“The partnership between Himax and E Ink marks a significant evolution from our years of collaboration in the e-reader industry, now venturing into the domain of e-signage and ESL,” said Mark Chen, vice president at Himax. “Leveraging E Ink’s versatile e-paper technologies and extensive industry reach, combined with Himax’s robust AI and ultralow power expertise, our goal is to redefine the possibilities of next-generation e-signage and ESL products, envisioning enhanced precision, privacy and versatility.”

JM Hung, vice president at E Ink (www.eink.com), added: “The synergy of E Ink’s e-paper with Himax WiseEye ultralow power AI delivers the ultimate battery-powered smart retail signage and ESL boasting significantly extended battery life. This collaboration enables us to gain deeper insights into end customers’ consumption intentions, facilitating customised product promotions and ultimately driving potential sales growth.”

Himax Technologies (www.himax.com.tw) is a fabless semiconductor provider dedicated to display imaging processing technologies. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Tainan, Taiwan, it employs around 2200 people from three Taiwan-based offices in Tainan, Hsinchu and Taipei and country offices in China, Korea, Japan, Germany and the USA. The company has 2772 patents granted and 398 patents pending.